:Obama- Fire Your Staff, Take a Common Sense Course!

In view of the recent tragedy in Israel want to remind you again of the Wednesday rally:

What: Coastal Georgians Stand With Israel Meeting

When: Wednesday, August 24, 6:30PM

Where: Coastal Georgia Center 305 Fahn St

Keynote Speaker: Victor Styrsky - Eastern Regional Director of Christians United For Israel (CUFI)

Rabbi Kenneth Leitner - Welcome From Savannah's Jewish Community

Cost: No Admission Charge, Public Invited!
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According to Obama, Lady Luck has been unkind to him. Krauthammer sees otherwise as well he should.

LL has also proven most unkind to our nation but we got what we bargained for though we did not see it that way because we were too mesmerized with fancy rhetoric and contempt for GW. The nation collectively became blinded by the flashing toothy smile of the new political messiah whose achievements and qualifications, for occupying the Oval Office, were basically non existent. Well we are paying the steep price and now even his own race is up in arms because his incompetence has even stirred the Black Caucus.

Those who continue to support him blame Republicans and cite Mitch McConnell's statement that his mission is to defeat Obama. Folks, that is what the opposition should be about when they have strong philosophical differences and evidence it 'ain't working.' If you are not in accord with who is in you work to throw them out and that is the rough and tumble of politics.

Obama would have us believe his problems are not of his doing because he was dealt a bad hand. When you have a bad hand the intelligent thing to do is not raise the stakes by bluffing but that is beyond Obama's egoist ability.

Obama has tried every tactic - divide and conquer, racial politics, Populism, spend and spend and nothing has worked nor is likely to work because our problems are systemic. They are the result of Keynesian and Progressive cumulative stupidity and Conservatism run amok when they too had the responsibility but would not adhere to their own set of disciplined principles. So woe is us and woe it will continue to be until such time as we reverse course.

Can we? Will we? and When? Those are the unanswered questions and only time will tell. (See 1 below.)

Stephen Moore explains why students/Americans hate economics - because Liberal ephemeral theory defies logic and common sense. (See 2 below.)

This was sent to me by a friend and fellow memo reader. I have seen it before but this is a good time to re-post. Its message supports some of the commentary above.

The only acclaimed resemblance Obama has to Abe Lincoln, if his policies are continued, will be to cause many more to live in log cabins, if even that.(See 2a below.)

As to Flash mobs see PJTV.Com: "Trifecta: The Kids Are Not Alright: Can We Stop Flash Mob Mayhem?

Flash mobs used to be all fun and games, but now they are turning dangerously criminal. Why do they do it? How can we stop them? Find out."
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Israel continues to hammer Hamas and Hamas responds.

I cannot see how an all out war is avoidable.

What is happening against Israel is a pre showing of what the West will eventually face but the West is cowered and confused about what to do. Consequently, the West will be forced to defend themselves later and in a more disadvantaged manner. That is the history of those who retreat in the face of even indirect threats. (See 3 below.)

Meanwhile, Syrian forces continue on their rampage of killing their own. Hillary, Assad does not hear you. Are all our plans ad hoc?(See 3a and 3b below.)
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When liberal Sen. DuPont gives up on Obama, one has every right to ask: 'What is this world coming to?' (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1)Bad luck? Bad faith?
By Charles Krauthammer

A troubled nation wonders: How did we get mired in 9.1 percent unemployment, 0.9 percent growth and an economic outlook so bad that the Federal Reserve pledges to keep interest rates at zero through mid-2013 — an admission that it sees little hope on the horizon?

Bad luck, explains our president. Out of nowhere came Japan and its supply-chain disruptions, Europe and its debt problems, the Arab Spring and those oil spikes. Kicked off, presumably, by various acts of God (should He not be held accountable too?): earthquake and tsunami. (Tomorrow: pestilence and famine. Maybe frogs.)

Well, yes, but what leader is not subject to external events? Were the minor disruptions of the current Arab Spring remotely as damaging as the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74? Were the supply disruptions of Japan 2011 anything like the Asian financial collapse of 1997-98? Events happen. Leaders are elected to lead (from the front, incidentally). That means dealing with events, not plaintively claiming to be their victim.

Moreover, luck is the residue of design, as Branch Rickey immortally observed. And Obama’s design for the economy was a near-$1 trillion stimulus that left not a trace, the heavy hand of Obamacare and a flurry of regulatory zeal that seeks to stifle everything from domestic energy production to Boeing’s manufacturing expansion into South Carolina.

He sowed, he reaps.

In Obama’s recounting, however, luck is only half the story. His economic recovery was ruined not just by acts of God and (foreign) men, but by Americans who care nothing for their country. These people, who inhabit Congress (guess which party?), refuse to set aside “politics” for the good of the nation. They serve special interests and lobbyists, care only about the next election, place party ahead of country. Indeed, they “would rather see their opponents lose than see America win.” The blaggards!

For weeks, these calumnies have been Obama staples. Calumnies, because they give not an iota of credit to the opposition for trying to promote the public good, as presumably Obama does, but from different premises and principles. Calumnies, because they deny the legitimacy to those on the other side of the great national debate about the size and scope and reach of government.

Charging one’s opponents with bad faith is the ultimate political ad hominem. It obviates argument, fact, logic, history. Conservatives resist Obama’s social-democratic, avowedly transformational agenda not just on principle but on empirical grounds, as well — the economic and moral unraveling of Europe’s social-democratic experiment, on display today from Athens to the streets of London.

Obama’s answer? He doesn’t even engage. That’s the point of these ugly accusations of bad faith. They are the equivalent of branding Republicans enemies of the people. Gov. Rick Perry has been rightly chided for throwing around the word “treasonous” in reference to the Fed. Obama gets a pass for doing the same, only slightly more artfully, regarding Republicans. After all, he is accusing them of wishing to see America fail for their own political gain. What is that if not a charge of betraying one’s country?

The charge is not just ugly. It’s laughable. All but five Republican members of the House — moderate, establishment, Tea Party, freshmen alike — voted for a budget containing radical Medicare reform knowing it could very well end many of their careers. Democrats launched gleefully into Mediscare attacks, hardly believing their luck that Republicans should have proposed something so politically risky in pursuit of fiscal solvency. Yet Obama accuses Republicans of acting for nothing but partisan advantage.

This from a man who has cagily refused to propose a single structural reform to entitlements in his three years in office. A man who ordered that the Afghan surge be unwound by September 2012, a date that makes no military sense (it occurs during the fighting season), a date not recommended by his commanders, a date whose sole purpose is to give Obama political relief on the eve of the 2012 election. And Obama dares accuse others of placing politics above country?

A plague of bad luck and bad faith — a recalcitrant providence and an unpatriotic opposition. Our president wrestles with angels. Monsters of mythic proportions.

A comforting fantasy. But a sorry excuse for a failing economy and a flailing presidency.
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2)Why Americans Hate Economics
In university classrooms—and especially the Obama White House—fancy theories of macroeconomics defy basic common sense.
By STEPHEN MOORE

Christina Romer, the University of California at Berkeley economics professor and President Obama's first chief economist, once relayed the old joke that "there are two kinds of students: those who hate economics and those who really hate economics." She doesn't believe that, but it's true. I'm surprised how many students tell me economics is their least favorite subject. Why? Because too often economic theories defy common sense. Alas, the policies of this administration haven't boosted the profession's reputation.

Consider what happened last week when Laura Meckler of this newspaper dared to ask White House Press Secretary Jay Carney how increasing unemployment insurance "creates jobs." She received this slap down: "I would expect a reporter from The Wall Street Journal would know this as part of the entrance exam just to get on the paper."

Mr. Carney explained that unemployment insurance "is one of the most direct ways to infuse money into the economy because people who are unemployed and obviously aren't earning a paycheck are going to spend the money that they get . . . and that creates growth and income for businesses that then lead them to making decisions about jobs—more hiring."

That's a perfect Keynesian answer, and also perfectly nonsensical. What the White House is telling us is that the more unemployed people we can pay for not working, the more people will work. Only someone with a Ph.D. in economics from an elite university would believe this.

I have two teenage sons. One worked all summer and the other sat on his duff. To stimulate the economy, the White House wants to take more money from the son who works and give it to the one who doesn't work. I can say with 100% certainty as a parent that in the Moore household this will lead to less work.

Economic bimboism is rampant in Washington. The Center for American Progress held a forum earlier this summer arguing that raising the minimum wage would create more jobs. For this to be true, you have to believe that the more it costs a business to hire a worker, the more workers companies will want to hire.

A few months ago Mr. Obama blamed high unemployment on businesses becoming "more efficient with a lot fewer workers," and he mentioned ATMs and airport kiosks. The Luddites are back raging against the machine. If Mr. Obama really wants to get to full employment, why not ban farm equipment?

Or consider the biggest whopper: Mr. Obama's thoroughly discredited $830 billion stimulus bill. We were promised $1.50 or even up to $3 of economic benefit—the mythical "multiplier"—from every dollar the government spent. There was never any acknowledgment that for the government to spend a dollar, it has to take it from the private economy that is then supposed to create jobs. The multiplier theory only works if you believe there's a fairy passing out free dollars.

How did modern economics fly off the rails? The answer is that the "invisible hand" of the free enterprise system, first explained in 1776 by Adam Smith, got tossed aside for the new "macroeconomics," a witchcraft that began to flourish in the 1930s during the rise of Keynes. Macroeconomics simply took basic laws of economics we know to be true for the firm or family—i.e., that demand curves are downward sloping; that when you tax something, you get less of it; that debts have to be repaid—and turned them on their head as national policy.

As Donald Boudreaux, professor of economics at George Mason University and author of the invaluable blog Cafe Hayek, puts it: "Macroeconomics was nothing more than a dismissal of the rules of economics." Over the years, this has led to some horrific blunders, such as the New Deal decision to pay farmers to burn crops and slaughter livestock to keep food prices high: To encourage food production, destroy it.

The grand pursuit of economics is to overcome scarcity and increase the production of goods and services. Keynesians believe that the economic problem is abundance: too much production and goods on the shelf and too few consumers. Consumers lined up for blocks to buy things in empty stores in communist Russia, but that never sparked production. In macroeconomics today, there is a fatal disregard for the heroes of the economy: the entrepreneur, the risk-taker, the one who innovates and creates the things we want to buy. "All economic problems are about removing impediments to supply, not demand," Arthur Laffer reminds us.

So here we are, three years of mostly impotent stimulus experiments and the economy still hobbled. Keynesians would be expected to be second-guessing the wisdom of their theories. Instead, Prof. Romer recently complained that the political system will not allow Mr. Obama to "go back and ask for more" stimulus.

And that is why Americans hate economics.
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2a)
Fwd: Ten Poorest Cities In America
1 recipientsCC: recipientsYou More
Hide Details FROM:Joseph Blattner TO:richard berkowitz Message flagged Friday, August 19, 2011 8:58 AMMessage body


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Subject: Ten Poorest Cities In America

THE TEN POOREST CITIES IN AMERICA
City, State, % of People Below the Poverty Level

1. Detroit , MI
32.5%
2. Buffalo , NY
29.9%
3. Cincinnati , OH
27.8%
4. Cleveland , OH
27.0%
5. Miami , FL
26.9%
5. St.. Louis , MO
26.8%
7. El Paso , TX
26.4%
8. Milwaukee , WI
26.2%
9. Philadelphia , PA
25.1%
10. Newark , NJ
24.2%

U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 American Community Survey, August 2007

What do the top ten cities (over 250,000) with the highest poverty rate all have in common?

Detroit , MI (1st on the poverty rate list) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1961; now has.

Buffalo , NY (2nd) hasn't elected one since 1954;

Cincinnati , OH - (3rd)...since 1984;

Cleveland , OH - (4th).....since 1989;

Miami , FL - (5th) has never had a Republican mayor;

St. Louis , MO - (6th).....since 1949;

El Paso , TX - (7th) has never had a Republican mayor;

Milwaukee , WI - (8th)....since 1908; but now has flash gan problems

Philadelphia , PA -(9th)...since 1952; also ow has flash gang porblems

Newark , NJ - (10th)....since 1907.

Einstein once said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

It is the poor who habitually elect Democrats---yet they are still POOR!

"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

Abraham Lincoln
...................
and, Mr. Obama,you are no Abe Lincoln!
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3)Continuous Palestinian missile blitz after Israel bombs 12 terrorist targets in Gaza

After the Israeli Air Force struck 12 Hamas and other terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip overnight Thursday, Aug. 18, a hail of missiles hit the towns of Ashdod, Beersheba, Ashkelon and the smaller Sdot Negev, Shar Hanegev and Eshkol villages in a continuous blitz Friday, Aug. 19. Ten worshippers were injured - two seriously - when one of the six Grads aimed at Ashdod hit a synagogue. Police detonated a second in a controlled explosion. The town's population is advised to stay in sheltered spaces.

Iron Dome is in action in Ashkelon. Red alerts have sounded in Gedera, Kiryat Gath and Gan Yavne.

Since 20 heavily armed gunmen killed eight Israelis and injured 33 in a multiple terrorist attack outside Eilat in southern Israel Thursday, Israel's armed forces, police and emergency services have been on high alert and reinforced. All weekend public events were cancelled in the South.

In the attack, gunmen from Gaza crossed the unfenced border from Egyptian into southern Israel and attacked two buses, two civilian cars and a military vehicle in an unfolding, complex terrorist operation which bore the signature of the Lebanese Hizballah and possibly al Qaeda fugitives from Iraq.

Seven were located and killed by police and army special forces. Shortly after the Palestinian attack, the Israeli Air Force struck a building in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, killing the six top leaders of the Popular Resistance Committees which directed the attack along with other Palestinian groups linked to al Qaeda. Israel's overnight air strikes hit more PRC as well as Hamas installations, weapons stores and smuggling tunnels.

Israeli forces backed by helicopters dropping flares combed the 70 kilometers of borderland running south from the Gaza Strip along the Egyptian Sinai border to flush out escaped terrorists and explosives traps. The searches continue Friday. The death Thursday night of Border Police Counter-Terror Unit's Senior NCO Paskal Avrahami, 49, from Jerusalem, raised the day's toll from terrorist attacks to eight. He was killed by one of the terrorists at large who had crossed back into Sinai.
1st Sgt. Moshe Naftali, 22, from Ofra, member of the Golani unit, was killed in the multiple attacks earlier that day. The other six victims were civilians.
Egyptian forces carrying out an anti-terror operation in Sinai were beefed after the multiple attack in Israel to block further passage of terrorists from Gaza into Israel. One unit traded shots with a suicide team early Friday after Egyptian chief of staff Gen. Sami Annan paid an overnight visit to the Sinai forces.


3a) Syrian forces kill 20 despite Assad pledge
By Alistair Lyon and Alastair Macdonald

Syrian forces shot dead 20 protesters on Friday despite a pledge by President Bashar al-Assad that a crackdown was over, activists said as thousands marched across Syria, spurred on by U.S. and European calls for him to step down.

Most of the violence was in the southern province of Deraa where the uprising against Assad erupted in March, triggering a harsh response in which U.N. investigators say Syrian forces may have committed crimes against humanity.

"Bye-bye Bashar; See you in The Hague," chanted protesters in the central city of Homs, waving their shoes in a gesture of contempt. "We want revenge against Maher and Bashar," shouted others, referring to the Syria leader and his powerful brother.

"The people want the execution of the president," shouted a crowd in northern Idlib province, reflecting deepening antipathy to the 45-year-old Assad. Some carried banners with slogans proclaiming "Signs of Victory."

Local activist Abdallah Aba Zaid said 18 people were killed in Deraa province, including eight in the town of Ghabaghab, five in Hirak, four in Inkhil and one in Nawa. Dozens of people were wounded, he said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two people were also killed in the Bab Amro district of Homs.

Assad, from the minority Alawite sect in the mostly Sunni Muslim nation, told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week that military and police operations had stopped. But activists say his forces are still shooting at protesters.

"Maybe Bashar al-Assad does not regard police as security forces," said a witness in Hama, where security forces fired machineguns late on Thursday to prevent a night-time protest.

Syrian state television said the deaths in Ghabaghab were caused by gunmen who attacked a police post, killing a policeman and a civilian and wounding two others. It said two members of the security forces and one gunman were killed in a clash in Harasta, near Damascus.

Syria has expelled most independent media since the unrest began, making it difficult to verify reports of violence in which the United Nations says 2,000 civilians have been killed. Authorities blame terrorists and extremists for the bloodshed and say 500 soldiers and police have been killed.

SNIPERS ON ROOF

Internet footage of Friday's protests suggested that although widespread they were smaller than at their peak in July, before Assad sent tanks and troops into several cities.

A doctor in Zabadani, 30 km (20 miles) northeast of Damascus, said army vehicles were in the town and snipers were on rooftops to prevent crowds marching.

Protesters from the Sunni majority resent the power and wealth amassed by some Alawites, who adhere to an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. They want Assad to quit, the dismantling of the security apparatus and the introduction of sweeping reforms.

The violent repression prompted coordinated calls from the United States and European Union on Thursday for Assad to step down and Washington imposed sweeping new sanctions on Syria, which borders Israel, Lebanon and Iraq and is an ally of Iran.

On Friday, European Union states agreed to expand the number of Syrian officials and institutions targeted by EU sanctions and laid out plans for a possible oil embargo. Syria exports over a third of its 385,000 barrels per day output to Europe.

The shape of a post-Assad Syria is unclear, although the disparate opposition, persecuted for decades, has gained a fresh sense of purpose as popular disaffection has spread.

President Barack Obama froze Syrian state assets in the United States, banned U.S. citizens from operating or investing in Syria and prohibited U.S. imports of Syrian oil products.

"The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way," Obama said. "His calls for dialogue and reform have rung hollow while he is imprisoning, torturing and slaughtering his own people."

Adding to international pressure, U.N. investigators said Assad's forces had committed violations that may amount to crimes against humanity. The United Nations plans to send a team to Syria on Saturday to assess the humanitarian situation.

The United States, Britain and European allies say they will draft a U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution on Syria.

But Russia, which has resisted Western calls for U.N. sanctions, said on Friday it also opposed calls for Assad to step down and believed he needs time to implement reforms.

"We do not support such calls and believe that it is necessary now to give President Assad's regime time to realize all the reform processes that have been announced," Interfax news agency quoted a foreign ministry source as saying.

SANCTIONS IMPACT

Despite the dramatic sharpening of Western rhetoric, there is no threat of Western military action like that against Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, meaning Assad's conflict with his opponents seems likely to grind on in the streets.

It may also take time for the diplomatic broadside, backed by the new sanctions, to have an impact on the president who took power when his father, Hafez al-Assad, died 11 years ago after three decades in office.

Assad has so far brushed off international pressure and survived years of U.S. and European isolation following the 2005 assassination of Lebanese statesman Rafik al-Hariri, a killing many Western nations held Damascus responsible for.

But Syria's economy, already hit by a collapse in tourism revenue, could be further damaged by Obama's announcement. U.S. sanctions will make it very difficult for banks to finance transactions involving Syrian oil exports.

It will make it also challenging for companies with a large U.S. presence, such as Shell, to continue producing crude in Syria -- although the impact on global oil markets from a potential shutdown of Syria's oil industry would be small compared to that of Libya.

Assad says the protests are a foreign conspiracy to divide Syria and said last week his army would "not relent in pursuing terrorist groups."

U.N. investigators said on Thursday Syrian forces had fired on peaceful protesters, often at short range. Their wounds were "consistent with an apparent shoot-to-kill policy."

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Laila Bassam and Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Alissa de Charbonnel in Moscow; Editing by Alistair Lyon and Alastair Macdonald)



3b)Where's the Syria Plan?
By Eugene Robinson

It's hard to argue with President Obama's call for Bashar al-Assad, the bloodthirsty Syrian dictator, to step down. But it's also hard to discern any logic or consistency in the administration's handling of the ongoing tumult in the Arab world.

It is obvious that Assad, like Libyan strongman Moammar Gaddafi, has no intention of surrendering power voluntarily. It is also clear that Assad's savagery is a match for Gaddafi's. Both used armored columns to put down peaceful protests. Both ordered assassinations and arrests. Both used naval vessels to shell cities that had become hotbeds of unrest.

So do we give Assad the Gaddafi treatment? Does Obama follow up his statement with a barrage of cruise missiles? Do we involve ourselves in yet another Middle Eastern war?

I don't see how. U.S. military forces are stretched painfully thin, with large-scale deployments still bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Pentagon's enormous budget is under new scrutiny, with increasing numbers of Republicans joining Democrats in demanding deep cuts. And polls consistently show that as we near the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, with Osama bin Laden dead, the American public is weary of war.

The call for Assad to go, then, appears more symbolic than substantive. You can't call it pure theater, since it does put additional pressure on the regime and lays the groundwork for further sanctions. But if everyone knows that Assad won't leave -- and that we won't make him -- the demand from the White House sounds like an extremely tardy statement of the obvious.

What we need is something the president has refused to provide: an Obama Doctrine governing the use of force to defend civilians against their own despotic governments, or at least spelling out how the United States views its role in the still-unfolding Arab Spring.

When the United States joined with NATO allies in launching the Libya intervention, Obama said he was not operating under some general rule about when to use force. At the time, my view was that we needed some guidelines. That opinion hasn't changed.

What I worry about, obviously, is mission creep. In coordination with the White House, the leaders of France, Germany, Britain and the European Union also issued statements Thursday calling on Assad to step down. Earlier this week, the government of Turkey -- which has gone out of its way to remain on relatively good terms with Assad -- expressed its exasperation at the Syrian leader's bloody crackdown and gave him what sounded like an ultimatum.

Why now? The unspeakable violence against Syrian civilians has been going on for months. It's hard to believe that the conscience of the developed world has just awakened. It's easier to surmise -- but just as difficult to accept, from the moral standpoint -- that U.S. and European leaders assumed Assad would survive no matter what outside pressure was applied, meaning that someday they would again have to regard him as a legitimate head of state.

What next? If the assumption that Assad will hang on has changed, how do the Obama administration and its allies see events unfolding? The new sanctions will apply a painful financial squeeze. Perhaps the declaration that Assad must go will embolden Syrians who despise the regime but believe it is unlikely to be overthrown. If these fence-sitters join the protests because of our encouragement, are we obliged to give them protection and support?

Where else? Except in Yemen, other autocratic Arab regimes have managed to tamp down democratic uprisings -- for now. But what about Bahrain, where the Sunni royal family used deadly force to crush legitimate protests by the Shiite majority? For that matter, what about Saudi Arabia and Jordan, where friendly monarchs govern without any of the inconveniences of democracy? Our approach seems to be that we seek to oust dictators only when their rule is seriously threatened.

It's predictable that Republican presidential candidates will blast Obama for his handling of the Syria crisis and the whole Arab Spring. These attacks will be cynical and unfair, because none of the GOP hopefuls has come up with a viable alternative approach -- with the exception of Ron Paul, who believes we have no business meddling in other nations' affairs, even Syria's.

But what happens if Assad decides his best move is to end the protests as quickly and brutally as possible? What if he kills not hundreds but many thousands? How do we respond?

Like I said, we really need a plan.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4)Change for the Worse
Just as he promised, Obama has fundamentally transformed America.
By PETE DU PONT

The Standard & Poor's downgrade of U.S. debt is the latest fruit of the Obama administration's big-government policies. Ask Americans how the country is doing, and the response is a vote of no confidence. In August 2009, 34% of likely voters said the country was headed in the right direction. A month ago that proportion had declined to 25%, and last week only 16% thought so. Rasmussen's mid-August poll found that 4% of adults rate the economy as good or excellent, and 66% think we are doing poorly.

Just before his election as president, Barack Obama declared that "we are five days from fundamentally transforming America." He has made good on that promise. Huge increases in federal spending—up 28% in just three years—were the beginning. Putting health care—17% of the American economy—under Washington's control was next. Government control of business is expanding too: 379 new government business rules were added in July alone, according to Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming. Federal government debt held by the public rose from $6 trillion (40% of GDP) in 2008 to $9 trillion (62%) in 2010, The Congressional Budget Office says it could reach 200% by 2037, if the economy doesn't collapse first.

Mr. Obama's original budget for fiscal 2012 would have more than doubled the debt held by the public, from 2010's $9 trillion to $19 trillion in 2021. Politico reports that by the 2013 inauguration, the government will have taken on addition debt to the tune of "$22,500 for every man, woman, and child in the nation" during Mr. Obama's tenure. Some 45 million Americans, or 1 in 7, receive food stamps, up from less than 30 million a few years ago. Finally, in the previous two years our annual economic growth after inflation has averaged only 1.3% annually, just about half our past 10-year average of 2.5%. In the first half of this year, it was running at an annual rate of 0.8%.

The White House says unemployment will decline to 8.25% this year, though it may well remain above 9%. Looking back at the past 50 years, no president has been re-elected when unemployment was higher than 7.2%.

One of the Obama administration's central (and most damaging) beliefs is that tax rates must be raised for what President Obama calls "millionaires and billionaires," which he defines to include individuals and small businesses making as little as $200,000. Interestingly, Christina Romer, who was chairman of Mr. Obama's Council of Economic Advisors, has done some research on the impact of tax increases, and concluded that increasing taxes by 1% of GDP for deficit-reduction purposes leads to a 3% reduction in GDP.

Raising taxes on affluent taxpayers is not just bad economics, it's unfair. The Tax Foundation has pointed out that in 2009 taxpayers earning over $200,000 paid half of all income taxes, even though they had earned just 25% of adjusted gross income. On the other hand, more that 58 million taxpayers, around 42% of tax filers, paid no income tax at all. Add in the money some of them receive in refundable child care tax credits, the Making Work Pay program and the Earned Income Tax Credit, and it is obvious that ratcheting up taxes on higher income taxpayers would just exacerbate this inequity.

Growing dissatisfaction, skyrocketing spending, a weak economy, and a real debate about tax hikes all suggest that the 2012 presidential election will be very different from the 2008 Obama victory. A recent Pew report finds that 41% of voters would like to see Obama re-elected, and 40% would prefer a Republican win in 2012. That one-point Obama lead was down from 11 points in May. The President's approval rating from January through June averaged 47%. Earlier this month, according to Gallup, it fell to 39%. Mr. Obama is unlikely to win re-election unless that number improves.

He faces three major challenge. The first is a rift with business leaders, who resent being scapegoated. They may work hard to raise campaign money for Mr. Obama's opponent.

The second is the increasing disappointment of independent voters, who are rightly unhappy with higher spending, higher taxes, ObamaCare, a lack of progress on trade, increased restrictions on the energy supply, and the near-commandeering of the auto and banking industries, all of which amount to an effort to Europeanize America, just as European welfare states are facing their own crisis

His latest challenge may well be from Texas Gov. Rick Perry's fresh presidential campaign speech: "The fact is, for nearly three years President Obama has been downgrading American jobs, he's been downgrading our standing in the world, he's been downgrading our financial stability, he's been downgrading our confidence and downgrading the hope for a better future for our children. That's a fact." Indeed it is, and it's a fact that bodes ill for the future of America.
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